Fire protection is an important aspect of building design. Modern residential and commercial buildings may require extensive amounts of electrical wiring and devices. Over time, or if installed improperly, degraded or faulty wiring can cause fires or other high heat conditions due to arcing and/or other causes. Due to the threat of fire and/or other heat conditions as a result of degraded and/or faulty wiring and devices, modern building codes often impose fire ratings and design guidelines to minimize the threat of fire due to degraded or faulty wiring and/or electrical devices and assemblies.
Compliance with building codes can create added costs and/or can affect aesthetic and ergonomic aspects of a building. For example, building codes often restrict the placement of electrical boxes in rooms or in adjacent walls. One such requirement is that electrical boxes may not be placed within twenty four inches of one another in a back-to-back configuration on opposite sides of a fire rated wall (“firewall”) or other structure. This requirement may make electrical box placement on opposite sides of a fire-rated wall difficult.
Additionally, degradation and/or failure of faulty electrical devices can cause fires. While various fire protection devices and/or materials are available for addressing some types of failures occurring within an electrical box or behind an electrical device cover, other failures may be difficult to protect against. For example, degradation or failure of various electrical devices may create a fire hazard. The design of the electrical device, however, may make protecting against the hazard difficult, if not impossible.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.